Local control of Ontario Airport won't come cheap, fast or easy

Aug. 16, 2014

Updated 3:06 p.m.

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Passengers prepare to head upstairs to their boarding gates in 2012 at the LA/Ontario International Airport. FILE: STAN LIM , STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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American Airlines passengers wait in line to get a flights to LAX after their flights were diverted to Ontario International Airport while all traffic was grounded at LAX in the aftermath of a shooting in a terminal their this morning. Passengers make their way through ONT to catch flights back to LAX in Ontario. FILE: TERRY PIERSON , STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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Transferring airport authority from Los Angeles to Ontario could take several years. STAN LIM , STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Passengers prepare to head upstairs to their boarding gates in 2012 at the LA/Ontario International Airport. FILE: STAN LIM , STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s willingness to transfer control of Ontario International Airport from the city of L.A. to a local airport authority gave Inland residents reason to cheer.

The airport has lost nearly 50 percent of its passenger volume since 2007 under the oversight of Los Angeles World Airports, a division of Los Angeles city government.

Ontario officials believe that with local control, they can begin to revive the airport through cost-cutting, airline incentives, better marketing and other measures.

But even with Garcetti backing local-control, transferring the airport from L.A. to the fledgling Ontario International Airport Authority is no simple matter.

Garcetti can’t wave a magic wand and make it happen.

He will have to convince the L.A. City Council, and perhaps the L.A. Board of Airport Commissioners, to go along. (Convincing the Ontario council will be a slam dunk.)

Even with talks under way, reaching an agreement is likely to take time and consummate diplomacy. L.A. officials need to be assured the city will be made whole on its investment.

Even before Garcetti went public with his support for local control of ONT on KPCC radio July 7, Los Angeles and Ontario officials were trying to negotiate an agreement on how such a transfer could take place.

At the same time, Ontario’s lawsuit against L.A. for alleged mismanagement and failure to attract more airlines and flights to Ontario continues in Riverside County Superior Court.

I asked Roy Goldberg, attorney for Ontario in the litigation, what legal steps will have to be taken to accomplish the transfer.

He said that first, the 1985 joint powers agreement between the two cities that gave Los Angeles ownership would have to be revised, rescinded or revoked.

The new agreement would have to be approved by the L.A .and Ontario city councils and perhaps the airport authorities in each city.

Once that’s done, the Ontario International Airport Authority – created in 2013 to operate, develop and market the airport – would apply to the Federal Aviation Administration for the certificate allowing it to replace L.A. as the operator.

The FAA is chiefly concerned with safety and accessibility, Goldberg said. Its review of whether the new airport authority is structured properly to oversee the airport could get underway even before a transfer agreement is reached, he said.

Because of the lawsuit and the sensitive nature of the negotiations, neither L.A. nor Ontario officials would discuss what’s going on in hashing out the transfer.

So where can one look for a model?

The only California commercial airport to be transferred from one public entity to another in recent years is San Diego International.

From 1962 to 2003, it was operated by the San Diego Unified Port District. In 2003, on the recommendation of an efficiency review, a state law was passed transferring it to a new San Diego County Regional Airport Authority created by the Legislature.

The new authority was given powers to plan, own and operate a regional airport.

The authority’s website describes the process as a “monumental task.” But it took less than three years from the time the first of two bills was introduced until the airport was run by the new, independent authority.

The situation is more complicated in Ontario because it involves a charter city, Los Angeles, which has its own powers not granted by state law, said Bret Lobner, general counsel to the San Diego authority, formerly with Los Angeles World Airports.

For example, L.A. can own property outside its jurisdiction (such as in Ontario), and “the state can’t just pass a bill and take it away,” Lobner said.

The city of San Diego was not involved in the transfer of San Diego International, only the port district and the regional airport authority, both created by the Legislature, which thus had the power to legislate it, Lobner said.

“We all just sat in a room and discussed how the board, executive team and employees should be structured,” Lobner said. The result was a more nimble, less bureaucratic agency than L.A. World Airports, he said.

The FAA was a big part of the transfer process, said Angela Shafer-Payne, vice president of operations, who was there throughout the transition.

The federal agency will want to know who will be operating the airport – in San Diego it was the same team that ran the airport under the port district – and be assured that FAA grants, which usually have 20-year terms, will be managed properly by the new authority, she said.

“The FAA is really going to drive a lot of the process,” she said, adding it took a full year in San Diego, just in time for the deadline set by the bill. “We came down to the wire.”

A few years earlier, the transfer of the Pittsburgh airport from Allegheny County to a new airport authority was prompted by an airline threatening to move its hub, said Kent George, its director at the time, now director of aviation in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

US Airways told county commissioners the hub was at risk unless they hired a professional airport director, got costs under control and switched to an independent airport authority, George said. “They did all three.”

Unfortunately, within a few years US Airways went bankrupt and shut down the hub. But under the new authority, the airport restructured its debt and gained a much stronger financial footing, George said.

The struggle by Ontario and neighboring Inland communities to gain control of Ontario International, while costly and time-consuming, still makes sense, in George’s view.

“A good, functioning airport is so important to the growth and sustainability of a community,” George said. “If the community is determined they want an airport, it’s worth fighting for.”

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